Curiosity
by Nonchey Niente
Summary: With everything in Goren's life a complete mess after Untethered I wonder has anyone checked in with Eames? How is she coping with everything that's happened to her recently?My premise is simple: Maybe it is Eames who needs to get it out of her system.
1. Chapter 1

With everything up in the air mentally, physically, emotionally and professionally after 'Untethered', anything could happen.

Goren is a mess. But has anyone checked in with Eames, recently? How is she reacting to everything that has happened to her in the last year or so?

My premise is simple: Perhaps it was Eames all along who needed to "get it out of her system".**  
**

I make no claims whatsoever on the characters of Goren and Eames, or the television programme 'Law and Order: Criminal Intent'.

**Curiosity.**

I look in on him every 15 minutes or so, long after Ross has given up and caught a ride home. Fuelled by terribly vending machine coffee, I sit on a cheap bucket chair by the side of his bed and watch.

You can see all ages of a man in his face when he is asleep. The muscles in the face and jaw all relax. The features become soft and malleable. It becomes a simple feat of imagination to see him as a child, as a teenager, as a young man, as a grizzled veteran on his death bed. They are all there now in his face.

Just before he wakes up, he dreams. His brows knit together and flicker apart again. His nostrils flare. After a moment of stillness, he finally wakes up.

Poor man. The first thing he sees, is me. He licks his lips. There is a saline IV snaking under the blanket into his arm, but I don't suppose he has had enough water through the normal channels. I help tilt his head up and let him sip from a beaker.

Physically I have always had a hint of curiosity about him. Yeah, I'll admit to that. It's not unnatural, when you work close with someone for a long time. Mentally of course I think I know all I need to about how he works, but physically he remains a mystery. I suspect he feels the same way about me. We've been through all sorts of things together, from my pregnancy to his depression. But always at a distance. So ... so, I am still curious I guess.

When he can talk, he says "You look like crap, Eames." Even tries to smile. Idiot. He pulls the covers down to inspect the IV drip; doesn't like it. I see he has wheals on his wrists and he notices them too. Likes that even less, I guess. His face is unreadable as he examines the damaged skin, which is reddened and angry.

He recovers quite quickly, ans leaves the hospital after less than 24 hours. But jumps straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.

He pulls me in with him, of course.

888888888888888888888

After three times of trying, he finally answers my call. "Where are you?"

A long pause. "Times Square."

"Stay there. Don't go any place. Do you understand?" But he hangs up.

I find him there: not as difficult as you might imagine. He's the only man in the whole of New York City who is standing so still right now. All around him is motion and light but he looks like someone who is in a dark, still place all of his own. He frightens me. I hold his arm and steer him towards the taxi. Instinctively I cover the back of his head as he folds himself into the back seat, just like packing a perp into a black and white. I give the driver my address and sit watching Goren, trying not to make my attention too obvious because I know it makes him squirm.

Unresisting, he lets me lead him upstairs. I park him in an armchair. He looks so dog tired I expect him to lay back in it and doze off like he sometimes does in the office - power napping, he calls it - what a crock! - but instead he sits pretty much upright, perching on the front of the chair. I don't want to look at him. I make coffee, that faithful stopgap, instead. No more vending machine trash; this is the real McCoy. I put sugar in his.

I sit on the couch and drink my coffee. He drinks. It's almost amiable. But there is a white elephant in the room no one's talking about and we are both staying silent because we don't want to go there.

I look at his shoes, playing a little game with myself - can I tell what he is thinking about just by watching his legs from the knee downwards? No, I can't. My eyes drift upwards.

Curiosity, that's all it is, I tell myself. But I can't stand it. I'm so tired of not listening to the all the questions. All the images in my head, all the violence of my baby's birth and the terror of the abduction, mixed up and mashed around. I'm desperate to do something to stop these flashbacks. Everyone has been concentrating so hard on Goren, on his problems, on his mother and his brother. I've been using what he is going through to distract me from what I am going through, but now I am too tired to procrastinate and evade any more. I need to do something drastic. Suddenly a whole bunch of things that used to seem so important to me seem irrelevant.

I lean over and kiss him on the mouth. I taste coffee, the sticky tang of sugar, and Goren's own personal scent. I have smelt him before of course but not in quite the same way as this. I really should stop. But I'm so curious. He stiffens, and protests.

"Eames what the hell are you doing?" His eyes are staring, more white visible than usual, just like a horse that's spooked. I don't know what I expected but I wasn't imagining he would be frightened of me. His lips curl away from his teeth. Disgust? I no longer care. He tries to pull back and away from me but the chair stops him. I kiss him again. He doesn't want to touch me. Interesting. If he was really that freaked out he could push me away, couldn't he?

Thank God; he closes his eyes. I think he is giving in. Without warning his hands snap upwards and grab me by the head and then he is kissing me back with a real ferocity, it almost feels like desperation. Oh, well I can see that call and raise it by 50, buddy. I shove him back into the chair and climb on, holding him still so I can be very thorough in my investigations - I'm a good cop, I have to find out, I need to know. No more talking Goren, no more cereal-box philosophy, no more picking apart the threads of other people's sad and tattered lives. It's just you and me now. I want to know you.

It's exciting. I know this man, but I don't know this side of him. I feel as safe and terrified at the same time. There are terrible red marks across his chest and stomach where apparently he was secured to a table with chains - chains, for God's sake? I grind my teeth together when I see that. I am so incensed but there's nowhere for it to go, no one to lash out at except Goren. He's not especially gentle but then neither am I at the moment. I shove him around. I'm horrified by what they did to him and I'm also angry ... I want to yell at him and hit him - to punish him for what he has done to me and to himself, to get back at him for pulling me into the wasteland and the mess that is his career. I feel fury and fear all mixed up with trust and care and it is powerfully erotic. This certainly isn't love-making. He's just in my line of fire, that's all.

I do yell, actually. I hope my neighbour hears me. I'm sick of her pitying looks in the hallway. Especially after I went to the hospital in full labour and came home again 48 hours later, empty-handed.

Afterwards? For perhaps half a minute Bobby (No. I have to still call him 'Goren') is tender and vulnerable, pushing his nose into my hair and inhaling deeply as though trying to consume me in some way not already covered by the activity of the last half hour or so. He doesn't let go of me until my leg starts to cramp.

Then the bricks and mortar come straight back up - like watching the fall of the Berlin Wall in reverse. Well. What did I expect? He stands up and pulls his clothes back on.

"So did I finally satisfy your curiosity?" he says archly, buttoning his jeans. He looks at me for an answer but I don't trust myself to speak yet. His heavily lidded eyes regard me with a coldness that is such a contrast, it surprises me. I'm thrown by his question, and refuse to meet his gaze while I throw a smart answer together with precious few ingredients. Looking at his eyes would only provoke him more, I know that. In his present mood I don't think that's a good idea but .. maybe later.

But I don't see him again for three days.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:**

The story is leaping about from one time frame to the next in my head, unfortunately. I wish I had the location, date and time stamp that earlier episodes of LO:CI (and the other LO series) had.

**GOREN:** - No, Mom. Not yet. It's too early.

- Mom, leave it will you? I'm still sleepy!

- I don' wanna.

- OK. I'll get up. In a minute. In a minute, I said!

It's not what I usually call waking up. It's more like clambering up out of some kind of pit - a coal mining tunnel? A ventilator shaft? An elevator? Something like that. Orpheus stumbling out of Hades. Must not look back. I'm climbing up but it's hard going because I hurt. I can't say for sure which bit of me hurts, because it seems to be all of me. There's no distinction. It's global. Universal. All over. And there's no Persephone.

Open eyes. Eyes, open. Sesa -me. Open. Come on.

I think I am in a hospital. I hope I am in a hospital.

Yes - there's an IV bag hanging over me. It's clear fluid. So I didn't bleed too much, then. Saline? Antibiotics?

Eames! I might have guessed. I - I want to talk to you. I can't. I want to smile. No. Can't do that yet, either.

She gives me some water. Could have done with you around when I ... when was it? Yesterday? Last week?

"Eames - you .. you look like crap!"

The effort to say that makes me cough but I really needed to say it. She did it to me that time I was waiting for her in the hospital. I think she was trying to get me to crack a smile - I'm never sure with Eames - but she was right, I did look like shit.

So does she, now. If her features are a reflection of my present condition then I'm pleased not to see myself. Her mouth has that tight look and she keeps hiding her face behind her hair.

Now she stares at me. Not my face. She's looking at my arms. I hold one up; wish I hadn't now. The restraints left reminders. I don't want to remember. I'll deal with that later.

Exercise in self-control: Can I keep the horror off my face? I can't let her see me like this. Is this what it is like to be raped? To be utterly helpless at the mercy of another human being?

I feel ashamed. I fold my arm with its glaring evidence of my ordeal back down under the cover and turn my head away. I'll think that through later. Everything is an effort. One thing at a time, please.

I have faced death before but always on my own terms. This time was different because I wasn't in control of any element of it at all. I was chemically emasculated and then physically compromised.

I keep thinking about my Mom.

**ROSS:** (reading) "Chronic but not cellular dehydration. Blood work shows evidence of sodium thiopental ('Sodium Pentathol; Truth Serum') via IV and other barbiturates (orally?)"

Oh, my God.

You read about this stuff, but you just don't ...

"External evidence of physical trauma to wrists, ankles, right inner elbow (excessive bruising - needle/shunt?), extensive bruising to solar plexus ... presenting with symptoms of early-onset Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) ... additionally, already-present severe (not manic) depression ... upheaval in personal circumstances ... insomnia ... paranoia, some evidence of mild neurosis. Exacerbated by higher-than-average intelligence" Ha! Tell me about it!

God, I can't ever let him read this. I'd never hear the end of it.

No, I'm being too hard. He's an arrogant bastard but at least he's not pretentious about it.

Close my eyes and wish I had never given up smoking. I need a cigarette now. I'm up the creek without a paddle, let alone a canoe. So is Eames. I need to make some calls.

**EAMES**: I need to work but Ross has me fiddling around doing reports and paperwork. I told him if he needed a secretary he should call Reed Employment, and I guess he was kind enough not to bust my chops over that. Perhaps he's in a good mood. I'm going to try something out on him.

"Captain, I really think we should contact the Chief of D's about Goren's suspension."

"What are you talking about?"

"I just feel - " Oh, please. As if I really know what I feel right now. "I feel it would be better for Goren if he were here, even if it was driving a desk for a while."

"You mean, so you can keep an eye on him?" Ross raises an eyebrow at me.

"Well, isn't that what you asked me to do?"

"I'm not sure it's appropriate, Detective. But leave it with me, I'll have a think about it."

I leave his office and in spite of myself, heft a huge sigh. Everything here looks colourless and dank, like a winter storm is brewing. I look at the clock. 3.00pm. I catch myself. Never in my professional life have I been a clock-watcher. It's just so hard to think properly at the moment.

I mean - why should I care if I lose my partner? I've had three of them before him, after all. I've lost a husband and a baby - I can stand losing Robert Goren. He's not the man I partnered any more, anyway.

Without warning I'm hijacked by the memory of him pressing his nose into my hair. Inhaling. Breathing me in. He was sniffing me - sniffing me, dammit.

Am I smiling? Ross is looking at me.

That's the Bobby Goren of old, the one I like to remember. He used to sniff_everything_. Grossed me out on many occasions. I admit, I wish he'd come back. But I don't really believe I'll ever see that man again. He's gone.


End file.
